


Bared

by Wallnut



Series: Not Such a Bad Thing To Be [6]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Fluff, M/M, Reflection, post-kh3, reexperiencing each other!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27612992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallnut/pseuds/Wallnut
Summary: In which Isa and Lea take an unexpected moment to re-experience each other, and find that a second first time doesn’t have to be hard.
Relationships: Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Not Such a Bad Thing To Be [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1279475
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Bared

It’s not the first time they’ve done this. Isa knows that. But it doesn’t stop him from feeling awkward and self conscious when Lea strips him of his shirt and then takes off his own, and the two are kissing on the edge of the couch. Isa’s heart is racing in his chest, not from excitement but from nerves. It catches him off guard a little, realizing that he’s finally able to distinguish one nuanced emotion from another, despite how similar the physical reactions to them are. Having a heart hasn’t really gotten any easier, but Isa’s awareness has increased tenfold. 

Which is why regret is his gut reaction when Lea pulls away from him, concern ruining his beautiful features. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Lea asks. Isa curses himself for having become so transparent. 

“I would have stopped you if I wasn’t,” Isa replies. He can feel the defensive sarcasm tainting his reply and winces at it. It’s not the time nor the place for it. 

Lea backs up off of Isa and sits upright next to him. He scratches at the back of his neck, and Isa almost wants to shut his eyes to avoid what’s coming, but he doesn’t. 

“I don’t...” Lea starts, taking a pause to collect his thoughts, “I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” He glances over at Isa, who’s leaning back against the arm of the couch, shoulders tensed. “You don’t have to do anything just because I want to.” 

Isa stares at Lea, thinking back to all the times he’d made Axel do things in the Organization that he hadn’t wanted to. Isa does want this. But it’s been years and he’s terrified. He’s not even sure _what_ he’s terrified of. He just is.

It kills Isa to see the look on Lea’s face, concerned and distant. This had come so naturally to them when they were teenagers. Why was it so hard now?

Isa leans in and pulls Lea’s jaw in to meet him in a kiss, slow and comforting. They break apart and Lea looks to Isa for answers, but Isa leaves his eyes shut, resting his hand on Lea’s face, their foreheads pressed together. 

“I want this, Lea. I think I’m just...overwhelmed,” Isa opens his eyes and looks down at Lea’s hand resting on his thigh. Lea gives a pensive hum.

“Maybe we could go a little slower? Spend some time relearning each other?” Lea suggests. Isa isn’t really sure what he means, but he nods in approval. Lea pulls away and gives Isa a smile with just his lips, and grabs his hand to pull Isa up toward him. 

He brings his hands up and brushes the hair back from Isa’s shoulders. He feels exposed. Lea notices. “Hey,” he rests his fingers on the curve of Isa’s jaw, “look at me.”

Isa meets Lea’s gaze, his hands curled to fists next to Lea’s thighs. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Lea asks.

“I’m thinking...a lot of things. About us. About the organization. About how things used to be and how they are now. How I am now.” Isa takes a steadying breath.

Lea offers a crooked smile. “That’s always been the problem isn’t it? You think too much.”

Isa can’t help but smile at that. He’d always been the smart one, the one to hold back and think things through, while Lea rushed headfirst into things without question. Maybe it wasn’t so different now.

Lea leans in and presses a kiss to Isa’s mouth. “Hm. Still the same,” he breathes after pulling away, then reaches in again to the soft skin under his ear, where his jaw ends and neck begins. Isa’s heart thuds in his chest. “No different here, either.” Lea’s hands slide down the length of Isa’s arms as his nose brushes the skin down his neck til his lips are at Isa’s collar. Isa finds himself pressed back into the couch again. Lea’s heat has simmered down from a blaze to a low burn, and it gives Isa time to soak it in. 

Lea resurfaces and brings his face close to Isa’s again. “See?” He smiles, “You’re exactly the way I remember.”

Isa looks up at him, into green eyes more familiar than his own, and he digs his fingers into Lea’s hair, pulling him in so he can taste Lea’s breath on his own when their mouths meet.

Lea feels wiry against him, all hard muscle and bone, and it reminds him how even on the flat, stiff beds of the Castle That Never Was, Axel’s frame was still more comforting than anything else in the room. 

They’re both gasping when they break apart. One of Lea’s thigh rests carelessly nudged between Isa’s legs and his abs press down hot on Isa’s bare stomach. It leaves him wanting. 

Lea trails his fingers down Isa’s chest, tracing the patterns of muscle down to his bellybutton. In another context the sensation might tickle, but instead it makes Isa shiver as the heat pools in his belly. Lea doesn’t push for more. He doesn’t undo the button of Isa’s pants or grind into him or do any of the things Isa _wishes_ he would do. Isa reminds himself that not five minutes ago he was about to push himself into a panic attack, and now they were taking things slow. 

Isa’s eyes flick to the half-open door of Lea’s room and for a half second struggles with the decision of whether he’s actually ready for this. The thought can’t seem to untangle itself from the hazy desires occupying his head: the feel of Lea’s skin on his, the idea that the bed would be more comfortable than the couch, the ever growing heat in his pants that’s both familiar and terrifyingly unknown to this new life. 

Isa grabs for Lea’s hands, stops them. Lea looks up at him, his expression twisting from concern to confusion when he sees the uncertainty on Isa’s face. Isa looks down at their hands still clasped together.

“We could—“ he starts, takes a breath and tries again, “Could we move? To your…” he trails off, gesturing to the door. 

Lea looks deliberately to the door of his room and back to Isa, letting the implication sink in. “Yeah,” he says, “Of course.” Somehow, losing the casualness of an unexpected tryst on the couch sends Lea’s nerves haywire, but he doesn’t show it as he pulls Isa past the door and into his cluttered little room.

It takes Lea by surprise when he finds his back to the bed and Isa’s hands at his jeans, undoing the fly, his gaze locked on just about anything besides Lea’s face. When his jeans are down, Lea finds himself being pressed onto the soft mattress, Isa’s broad chest trapping him on the expanse of the bed. 

Isa’s right, the bed is more comfortable. He feels in control, like he has a choice, not like he’s at the mercy of the couch’s odd angles and Lea’s weight against him at his most vulnerable. Isa reaches for Lea everywhere—the base of his neck where his hair erupts into red flames, down to the rough skin of his hamstrings, the cotton of Lea’s boxer’s bunching up in his hands. Lea goes pliant underneath him, fingers working at the last of his clothes, and then Isa is naked and on top of him, his breath hitching at the cool air between their skin.

Lea flushes, half embarrassed, half because he _wants_ Isa, in a way he can’t remember wanting him in years. Isa is frozen in space, hot everywhere his skin meets with Lea’s, his mind running through all the times he’d done this as a human, as a nobody, and now. 

It’s a strange thing trying to consolidate the person he knew as a child, with Axel, and then again trying to see how those two became the person that he’s with now. He wonders if it's the same for Lea, if he also tries to trail back through their memories till he can pinpoint the moment one version turned into the next. Isa’s memories are fuzzy, like looking through opaque glass, but as Lea reaches up for him and tilts their bodies so they’re facing each other sideways, he can see bits of the boy he fell in love with in his childhood bedroom.

Isa reaches down to the boxer’s Lea still has on, and the childish phrase runs through his head— _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_. It almost feels silly how nervous he had been before. He smiles into the kiss he presses into Lea, who’s exploring the planes of his abdomen with the gentlest of touches. Despite how at ease he appears, Lea’s voice catches when he asks, “Are you doing okay?”

Isa nods, regretting the distance between them, and swallows the groan from Lea’s mouth when he presses their bodies together, hands looking for purchase against each other’s skin.

Even as a nobody, Isa’s body couldn’t forget the things it had learned and loved as the years had passed. It seemed muscle memory didn’t just extend to him, but to Lea too. Lea still found the best place to muffle his groans in the crook of Isa’s neck, hot breath condensing against Isa’s clavicle. Isa found his hands still fit perfectly around the curve of Lea’s hips, fingers resting on the dimples at his back. But where before there had been biting words and cold silences as they had probed each other for what remained of their humanity, now there was nothing but the present. They raked each other and Isa found he could say more in his touch than the words of apology that formed in his head. It wasn’t until he was on his back again, out of breath and splayed open, that Lea’s name fell from his lips. It was less like a name and more like a statement, an acknowledgment. He was here with Lea and he was okay. 

After a moment Lea, never the one for long silences, asked again, “Tell me what you’re thinking, Isa.” 

Isa looked at the man at his side. His hair was disheveled and his face flushed, eyes blazing emerald around the edges of his pupils. He thought of when they’d met, how he had brushed the scrawny boy off, and he thought of years later, when he thought he would rather die than admit he had a crush on the boy. He thought then of the years after that, when they had learned each other’s skin better than their own and they thought they could uncover all the secrets of their home world. He thought of the day they’d lost their hearts, their humanity, and the X-shaped scar he’d been given in return. He thought of the years he’d spent hoping he could find what was left of him inside Axel, only to be disappointed when he realized there wasn’t anything to be found. He thought, finally, of dying. He could see Lea’s face above him, Lea’s hands pressed to his back, holding him up, as he admitted his jealousy, his need to be the only one to hold a place in Lea’s heart. 

“I’m thinking,” Isa begins tentatively, raising his eyes, teasing a little, “...that I’ve missed you,” he finishes quietly. 

Lea is silent, his eyes still burning on Isa’s face. He looks intense, nearly angry, and for a sweeping second Isa fills with fear again. But Lea shakes his head, his intensity falling away with the action, and brings a hand up to cup Isa’s cheek. 

“I never left you, Isa,” he explains, “I never would.”

Isa takes in the man in front of him and he believes him. From his red hair to his green eyes to his recklessness, he believes him. He always would.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this ages ago trying to explore the Isa and Lea’s physical intimacy post-recompletion. The main things I wanted to get in were Isa’s insecurity (not feeling good enough, feeling guilty about all he’d done) and Lea showing understanding and forgiveness. I hope I achieved some of that, this sat in my drafts so long I had almost given up on it :’)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
